***SPOILER ALERT*** If you haven’t finished Halo Reach and are planning to do so in the future, don’t read this post. Otherwise, read on! ***SPOILER ALERT***

So, let me preface this by saying that I enjoyed Halo Reach. It’s probably the best campaign of the series in terms of tried and true Halo gameplay with the most epic of set pieces. And for all of its greatness, Bungie added a completely unnecessary epilogue level that is unwinnable.

I get it. Let’s make a dramatic/shocking ending by letting your character have no chance at beating the level and then get overwhelmed and killed by Covenant Elites. And then have an epilogue that tells you its the end despite your best efforts to kickass for the last 10 hours but it was all worth it because you paved the way for Master Chief to kill everything in the future and revenge your death. Which leads me to this…

Yeah, we know we’re supposed to die. But showing it is completely unnecessary. There is just no drama in it. Especially when you’ve spent the last couple hours being brutally murdered over and over again by waves of Elites on Legendary, the novelty of being overwhelmed by Elites loses its impact.

Furthermore, it’s very unsatisfying when you’ve spent the whole game overcoming all of these odds only to be unable to overcome this last onslaught of enemies. And really, it’s just a bunch of grunts and a few Elites. It’s almost as if the game is laughing at you.

So yeah, loved the game and it’s still fun to play but like Lord of the Rings, it really should’ve ended at the first ending. There is closure in knowing that you’ve sent Master Chief on his way to clean up the Universe. Some things just don’t need to be spelled out.